AI TRANSFORMATION OF ECONOMY

The introduction of AI and automation technologies has raised concerns about job displacement and the future of human employment. As machines become more capable of performing complex tasks that were previously limited to human expertise, there is a growing concern about job losses and labour market polarisation.

The AI trend of technological singularity is continuously accelerating and is being employed to the different facets of humanity from education, medicine, business, engineering, arts and the like. Government and private companies have been hooked up with this fast-pacing technology. This trend has seen governments across the globe battling with the issue of legislating a policy environment that will regulate the entire artificial intelligence space, Eswatini is not an exception to this changing global economic and societal landscape.
Hence today, I felt it incumbent to delve into the space and discuss what the economy will look like and what countries need to do to get ready to compete in the digital landscape. Data is the new oil, master data and your economy will thrive in this new edge. Mastery of AI with its seemingly boundless computing power is crucial if Eswatini is to remain competitive in the edge of big data.

Timeline

Change is the only constant in life, humans have been able to dominate the earth and the productive technologies because of our ability too adapt. I will give snippets of disruptive technologies over time and how they shaped the economic landscape and the productive capabilities of the world in which we live. These we can trace back to the invention of the steam locomotive and sail boat and the steam boats. These revolutionised logistics and allowed international trade and catalysed globalisation.

Post World War II the industrial revolution ensued which largely resulted in the automation of the household management industry and allowed consumers a broad space of commodity bundles. Then there was the dot.com bubble further catalysing globalisation and international commerce. In the 2000s we saw the emergence of smartphones and improvements in digital computing, the 2010s ushered in an era of cloud computing and now we are in the presence of AI.

Benefits

A constant learning that we have come to appreciate as economists is that disruption brings about new frontiers and opportunities. In order for a nation to survive, they need to align and somehow embrace change lest risk being blown into oblivion. As I pen this article, I am reminded of the Nokia story, had they shifted in to android technology, they would still be the market leader in mobile phone manufacturing. In the same vein, as much as the introduction of android technology replaced the old operating system, new jobs in android programming and android applications development boomed.

This created more jobs than the jobs that were lost, all that was required was for those skills to retrain to get into the new booming and higher paying android jobs. This is where we find ourselves in the current AI landscape. Yes, AI may displace some non-digital jobs that performs heavy load and repetitive tasks, but it certainly augments labour shortage by realigning the workforce competitiveness to what the technology requires.

AI readiness

The task at hand is to shape Eswatini into an AI-ready country and get our people to participate effectively in the AI landscape. One key aspect of preparing for the AI revolution is ensuring an AI-ready workforce. The integration of AI systems into the workplace will require a significant shift in the skills and competencies needed to thrive in this new landscape. Employees will need to develop a deep understanding of AI technologies, including their capabilities, limitations and ethical implications.

This will involve not only technical skills, such as programming and data analysis, but also the ability to collaborate with AI systems, think critically about their outputs, and adapt to the changing nature of work. Eswatini needs to be ready for this shift. As it were the skills report, there is a glaring skills mismatch between the skills that we chun out of our training systems and the job market requirements. We need to align skills with the skills that are required in the job market. We also need to invest in the curriculum, programming, data science and big data analytics need to be at the core of our curriculum. Also, retraining of our labour force is critical. AI has to be part of the curriculum, we cannot be AI ready if the curriculum is not inclusive.

Societal intelligence   

In addition to workforce readiness, preparing for the AI age also requires addressing the potential societal impacts of this technology. As AI systems become increasingly integrated into our daily lives, it is crucial to ensure that the development and deployment of these technologies are aligned with ethical principles, such as fairness, transparency, and accountability. One approach to addressing these societal concerns is through the implementation of Intelligent Efficiency, a framework that emphasises the inclusive and holistic integration of AI systems into complex systems. This requires that we train our law makers on artificial intelligence so they can regulate effectively.

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